by Ouida
“You are very epigrammatic, my dear, but I am afraid you have not much more common sense than Wilfrid Bertram.”
“John,” she adds to her husband, “do you think it would be of any use if I went and tried to persuade him to suspend his decision?”
“I don’t think it would be the slightest,” replies her lord. “But you might try. There would be no harm in trying. Tell him it’s flying in the face of Providence.”
“I am afraid he doesn’t believe in Providence!” says Lady Southwold, with a sigh.
Twenty minutes later she returns to her morning-room with a discouraged air, and draws off her gloves.
“He was not at home,” she says, in answer to her husband’s look of interrogation. “The door was shut, and his card was stuck under the bell with ‘Out’ written upon it. I suppose I could have done no good if I had seen him. For I met Scott-Gwynne in the street, and he told me he had just heard Mr. Fanshawe saying in the reading-room at the Travellers’ that Wilfrid had refused formally, and signed his refusal. Fanshawe was present.”
“But Mr. Fanshawe as a Socialist, as a Radical, must approve the refusal?” says Cicely Seymour, from where she sits by a stand of Malmaison roses.
Southwold laughs grimly.
“Fanshawe thinks all wealth should be equally distributed; but so long as it isn’t so, he gets all he can for himself, and considers everybody should do the same who has the opportunity.”
Cicely is silent.
“I suppose Wilfrid has gone to have tea and shrimps with the washerwoman,” says Lady Southwold. “Cicely, give me some tea, please. I fear shrimps are an unknown joy to us.” Cicely rises and goes over to the tea-table.
“Are you really positive that he is going to marry this girl?” asks his aunt, as Cicely hands her a cup and some muffin.
“The mother of the girl said so,” replies Cicely, coldly. “She did not, herself, seem to care about it.”
Lord Southwold laughs savagely.
“To make a mesalliance, and not even to be welcome! By Jove! The fellow ought to be shot. Disgracing both our families in such a manner.”
“You are unfair to him, Lord Southwold,” says Cicely.
“In what way, my dear?”
“You do not attempt to enter into his views, his motives, his principles. His opinions may be somewhat exaggerated, but his loyalty to them is none the less admirable.”
“Oh, you do admit they’re exaggerated?”
“Some of them, yes. At least, in the Age to Come there are things which one cannot wholly accept, but they always err on the side of generosity! And he is always consistent. Mr. Fanshawe may be more politic, but he is far less to be respected. You blame the refusal of this fortune. But you must admit it shows his consistency.”
“Only fools are consistent,” says Southwold, with unspeakable contempt.
“Really,” cries Lady Southwold, “one would think you were in love with Wilfrid to hear you, Cicely.”
Cicely colours a little.
“One is not necessarily in love because one can see two sides to a question. It seems to me extremely unjust to quarrel with anybody for endeavouring loyally to carry out the views which they profess. You seem to admire Mr. Fanshawe’s opportunism: I do not.”
“Fanshawe is a shrewd man of the world, Wilfrid is a monomaniac who has gone daft on altruism.”
“Or Annie-ism, as Lord Marlow observed with such exquisite wit,” says Cicely from her retreat amongst the roses, whither she has returned after dispensing the tea.
A footman puts aside the portières of one of the doors, and announces:
“Mr. Bertram.”
There is a dead silence.
Lord and Lady Southwold stare blankly at him.
Cicely rises from her bower of roses and crosses the room to him. She holds out her hand with a charming smile.
“Let me congratulate you on your marriage, Mr. Bertram,” she says, in a very kind, sweet voice.
Bertram looks at her with a little embarrassment.
“It is very good of you, Miss Seymour; you are the only person who has said a kind word—”
“A kind word! Can you expect kind words?” begins Southwold, in great ire.
“My dear Wilfrid, when you afflict and disgrace us so,” says his aunt.
Bertram silences them with an impatient movement.
“Allow me to speak. My marriage will not disgrace you, for it will not take place—”
“Thank God!” cries Lady Southwold.
“It is not I who have withdrawn. It is — it is — Miss Brown, with the consent of her family. But I did not come to speak of this matter, which is one purely personal; one with which I was not aware you were acquainted. I came to apologise to Lord Southwold for my rudeness to him a little while ago.”
“All right, all right,” replies that choleraic but amiable person. “I’m afraid I used strong language myself; but really your pig-headed illusions are so uncommonly trying to a plain, ordinary man like myself—”
“And you haven’t refused the inheritance, Wilfrid?” asks his aunt, in great anxiety.
“I have refused, certainly,” replies Bertram;— “I have signed and sealed refusal.”
Southwold emits a very wicked word; his wife groans aloud. Cicely Seymour, who has gone back to the roses, listens with a face grown bright with interest and approval.
“Miss Seymour does not blame me?” says Bertram, softly.
“No; I should do as you have done.”
“Thanks,” says Bertram, very gravely. Then he takes a registered letter out of his pocket.
“I have just received this,” he continues. “Will you allow me to read it to you? It was sent to me by the poor vicar of a village in the Pontine marshes, near which my cousin met his death. He says that my cousin dictated it as he lay dying in his presbytery, and the priest wrote it; it has been sent to me through the Embassy in Rome. Hence the delay. To Folliott of course the man of business had telegraphed. The letter which he dictated to this priest is, of course, in Italian. I propose to translate it to you, for I think my uncle and you do not know that language. It is very short.”
He speaks to his aunt, but he looks at Cicely Seymour.
“‘I am a dead man,’” he reads aloud from the letter. “‘An old tusker has let life out of me for ever. You will get this when I am gone. I wish we had known each other. I have left you all I possess, not because you are a relative, but because I think you will do good with it. I have not been a student, but I have seen some numbers of your journal, and though I do not agree with you in all your opinions, I see you care for the poor. Come and live on my lands, and you’ll have work enough cut out for you. I have not done my duty — do yours.’ It is signed by him, and the signature is witnessed.”
They are all silent.
Lady Southwold has tears in her eyes.
“There is a postscript,” continues Bertram, “‘Take care of my horses and dogs.’ The priest adds that the poor fellow had desired him to send it to the English Embassy, and died half an hour after dictating it. That is all.”
“It is very touching,” says his aunt. “I wish we had known him.”
“So do I.”
“A pity you did not get it earlier,” says Southwold, “or had not been so precipitate.”
Bertram folds the letter up and looks across at the Malmaison roses.
“Magdalen College,” adds Southwold, grimly, “won’t trouble itself much about the horses and dogs.”
“Can’t you withdraw your refusal, Wilfrid?” asks his aunt.
Bertram is silent.
“Would they let you?” asks Southwold.
“It is a cruel position to be placed in,” says Bertram.
“Would it be utterly impossible,” says Southwold, sarcastically, “for you to regard it, as a mere, humdrum, ordinary Philistine person like myself would do, as a very fortuitous and felicitous piece of good luck?”
“Good luck!” echoes Bertram,
in disgust. “Cannot you see that whatever I do I must feel humiliation and remorse; that however I may decide, I must feel that I leave some duty undone?”
“No,” says Southwold, very shortly, “I really cannot see anything of the sort. But I am obtuse, and I am very commonplace.”
There is again a prolonged silence.
It is broken by the low, clear voice of Cicely Seymour, on whose hair the last rays of the dim red London sun are shining in a nimbus.
“I understand what Mr Bertram feels. To accept this fortune will be painful, and even odious to him with his views. But to let it go to others, even to Oxford, must be, after receiving this letter, equally distressing to him because he will feel that he has failed to carry out a dead man’s trust. Is not that your meaning, Mr. Bertram?”
“It is.”
“These are very fine-drawn sentiments, and they are, I confess, wholly beyond me,” says Southwold, with gruff contempt.
“I know what they both mean,” says his wife. “But to me too it is, I admit, rather far-fetched. It seems to me so easy and so simple to go back to Folliott and Hake and say, ‘I have changed my mind; I accept.’”
“But would it be right to do so?” says Bertram. “How can I be sure that the foul fiend of selfishness is not deluding me by taking the shape of duty?”
“You split straws!” growls Southwold. “The business of the world would never get done if men hemmed and hawed and tortured themselves as you do. Can you retract your refusal? That’s the main question.”
“I can. Folliott said that they should take no action on it for twenty-four hours, but hold it in abeyance for that term. Fanshawe suggested that, indeed insisted on it.”
“Fortunate for you that a practical man was with you. I have a respect for Mr Fanshawe which I did not feel before. Well, my dear Wilfrid, you can’t hesitate.”
Bertram does hesitate.
He looks across at the roses.
“Will you decide for me, Miss Seymour?”
“It is a great responsibility,’ she replies, and her colour rises.
She plays with one of the roses nervously for a few moments. At last she looks up and says gravely:
“I think you should accept, Mr. Bertram. To you such wealth would be no sinecure, but always regarded as a great trust to be employed for the welfare of others.”
Bertram bends his head.
“Since you think so, I will endeavour to merit your opinion of me.”
“And if you go and live on the Italian lands you can be as self-sacrificing and as wretched as you like,” adds Southwold, gleefully. “Mosquitoes, malaria, malandrini, and the hourly probability of a shot from behind a hedge, or a dagger-thrust from an irate beggar, will certainly provide you with constant material for the most active altruism.”
“Of course he will be in England half the time; there is a great deal of the Errington property in England,” says Lady Southwold, before whose mental vision many charming prospects are dancing; and she rises and goes across to Cicely Seymour and kisses her on her sun-illumined hair.
“You will always give Wilfrid good counsel, won’t you darling?” she says, very tenderly.
“Mr. Bertram will want no counsel but his own conscience,” says Cicely Seymour, with the colour in her cheeks. “Oh, An Altruist Lord Southwold, conscience is so rare in our days, it seems almost dead; you should not laugh at those who through all mockery try to keep alive its sacred flame!”
“Since Wilfrid has your esteem, my dear, I laugh at him no longer,” says Southwold, with pleasant malice. “I am thoroughly convinced that he is the wisest, and will be the happiest, of men.”
OUIDA.
The Waters of Edera
This short novel was published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1900 and reflects Ouida’s interest in animal rights and the anti-vivisection movement. She rescued many animals – at one point she was thought to have had thirty dogs of her own, all rescues – her novel Puck, was an “autobiography” of her rescued Maltese Terrier, who witnesses much cruelty to other animals, yet escapes from abuse himself. As a tribute to the author and to her devotion to the welfare of animals, a water trough was erected in her place of birth, Bury St. Edmunds, after her death, with the inscription: “Here may God’s creatures whom she loved assuage her tender soul as they drink.”
Although the story is not directly about animals per se, Nerina, the main female character, is described as being like a stray animal, “timid, mute and humble, like a lost dog.” This is a straightforward tale compared to the gender-play and amoral behaviour featured in the likes of Under Two Flags and the public libraries were keen to stock it as a wholesome story.
It is a Sunday and a Saints day; in the Vale of Edera, a shepherd has staged a brutal fight between two rams, during which one animal dies. Nerina, a young beggar girl tries to help the fatally injured animal and berates the shepherd responsible for the fight, but soon moves on her way. Nerina is an orphan from the mountains - her mother has died from hunger and her father has worked himself to death. She passes her days by wandering the countryside, working on small jobs if she can and dependent on handouts from householders at other times. She encounters Adone Albe of the village of Ruscino, an idealistic young man, who takes pity on her and takes to his family home for a meal. Adone’s mother, Clelia Alba and the local priest, are sceptical that this skeletal child can be rehabilitated, but Adone is adamant that they try; “the river brought her”, he says, meaning that his utmost faith in the “personality” of the water would not trick them. Nerina does stay, working hard as a farm hand for her bed and food and grows strong and healthy; she follows Adone everywhere, devoted to him as her rescuer; Clelia is becoming concerned, as although Nerina is naïve and still child-like, her body is quickly becoming that of a woman. She visits the priest, Don Silverio, to ask for his help in finding Nerina a husband. The priest has misgivings, as he understands how hard the life of a married peasant woman can be: “The travail of child-bearing, the toil of the fields, the hardship of constant want, the incessant clamour on her ear of unsatisfied hunger…a creature of burden like the cow she yokes, an animal valued only in her youth and her prime; in old age or in sickness like the stricken and barren goat, who has nought but its skin and its bones.” In short, an animal to be used and discarded once past its useful life.
However, it soon transpires that a more urgent matter needs the attention not only of Adone, Nerina and Clelia, but of the whole community. Don Silverio sees the following news report:
The project to divert the course of the Edera River will be brought before the Chamber shortly; the Minister of Agriculture is considered to favour the project.
The beautiful river that is the raison d’être for Adone and many others in the valley, is to be diverted for a hydraulic power project – without the water, they will have to migrate, or starve. Don Silverio travels to the city to put the case of his parishioners to the engineers, politicians and planners, but his arguments and pleas fall on deaf ears – the project must go ahead. The community is appalled and panicked, but one man – Adone – takes the news particularly hard, driven almost to madness by the situation. What can he do to help himself and his fellow victims of this cruel development? Nerina is determined to help him save the river and his community.
This novel is a valiant attempt by Ouida to create rural peasant characters that are properly rounded personalities, with a questioning mind, flaws and good points in equal measure. In some of Ouida’s other novels, such as Pascarel, it might be said that such realism was sacrificed in an attempt to create word paintings of quaint peasant life. A derogatory reference to Jewish capitalists may offend the modern reader, but can only be taken now as a sign of the times in which Ouida lived and it is matched by an equally derogatory remark about all capitalists that loved only profit.
The first edition’s title page
CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
I
It was a country of wide pastures, of moors covered with heath, of rock-born streams and rivulets, of forest and hill and dale, sparsely inhabited, with the sea to the eastward of it, unseen, and the mountains everywhere visible always, and endlessly changing in aspect.
Herdsmen and shepherds wandered over it, and along its almost disused roads pedlars and pack mules passed at times but rarely. Minerals and marbles were under its turf, but none sought for them; pools and lakes slept in it, undisturbed save by millions of water fowl and their pursuers. The ruins of temples and palaces were overgrown by its wild berries and wild flowers. The buffalo browsed where emperors had feasted, and the bittern winged its slow flight over the fields of forgotten battles.
It was the season when the flocks are brought through this lonely land, coming from the plains to the hills. Many of them passed on their way thus along the course of the Edera water. The shepherds, clothed in goatskin, with the hair worn outward, bearded, brown, hirsute men, looking like savage satyrs, the flocks they drove before them travel-worn, lame, heart-broken, the lambs and kids bleating painfully. They cannot keep up with the pace of the flock, and, when they fall behind, the shepherds slit their throats, roast their bodies over an evening fire, or bake them under its ashes, and eat them; if a town or village be near, the little corpses are sold in it. Often a sheep dog or a puppy drops down in the same way, footsore and worn out; then the shepherds do not tarry, but leave the creatures to their fate, to die slowly of thirst and hunger.
The good shepherd is a false phrase. No one is more brutal than a shepherd. If he were not so he could not bear his life for a day.
All that he does is brutal. He stones the flock where it would tarry against his will. He mutilates the males, and drags the females away from their sucking babes. He shears their fleeces every spring, unheeding how the raw skin drops blood. He drives the halting, footsore, crippled animals on by force over flint and slate and parching dust. Sometimes he makes them travel twenty miles a day.